The chicken rice fallacy

Thanks for the readers who shared my last article on the fallacy about tax in the West - I was contemplating adding this onto the that article but I thought it was interesting enough to merit its own article. I call it, "the chicken rice fallacy". It was something I had encountered back in the 1990s when I was living in Singapore and Singaporeans are still going on and on about the chicken rice fallacy on social media today. Given that I totally love chicken rice and it is one of our national dishes, let's talk about the chicken rice fallacy today.

Back in the 1990s, I remember reading an article in the Straits Times about students opting to study locally rather than abroad - one of the justifications given by a student who opted for NUS centred around chicken rice. Not her education, not her job prospects, not her ambitions - but chicken rice. I guess she must really love chicken rice and her cravings for chicken rice must sit on top of her Marslow hierarchy of needs. She said something like, "in Singapore, I can go to the hawker centre and get chicken rice for $2.50 but in America or England, it would cost over $10, so expensive."

Now I have actually dealt with this issue in an article last year - but the bottom line is this: if you're looking for a quintessentially Singaporean dish like chicken rice or laksa in the West, of course you're going to pay more. Students in the West save money by eating what the locals eat, rather than insisting on dining out at expensive foreign restaurants. Here's a simple analogy about eating local: fruits. I love jackfruit (nangka) but it is extremely expensive in the West compared to in Singapore because it has to be flown from halfway around the world from somewhere like Thailand or Sri Lanka by air. Par contre, the jackfruit you buy at an NTUC supermarket in Singapore is inexpensive as doesn't come with several thousand air miles and a huge carbon footprint - it is probably from Malaysia.

Delicious jackfruit (nangka)

On the other hand, blackberries grow wild in England and are everywhere - parks, the woods, gardens, even by the side of the motorway. I go berry picking every autumn and can fill plastic bags full of blackberries - however, if you had cravings for blackberries in Singapore, ooh it is expensive. $$7.90 for a tiny punnet of it at Cold Storage for blackberries flown in from America, or S$7.85 for the canned version. Ouch. I can so easily turn this around and get a British expatriate to say, "in the UK, I can simply walk down any country lane and fill several plastic bags full of blackberries for free - but in Singapore, just a handful of blackberries would cost me S$7.90?! That's so expensive."

Picking wild blackberries in Somerset in the woods

The solution is simple. I enjoy jackfruit when I am in Singapore and blackberries when I am in the UK. Doing the opposite would simply mean spending a lot more money for a lot less delicious fruit and satisfaction. This is why I still find it incredible when I see Singaporeans in 2013 resorting to the 'chicken rice fallacy' when arguing about higher taxes in the West. For them, it all boils down to, "yes, but chicken rice is so much more expensive in the West." Okay, shall we talk about other things apart from chicken rice? How about buying property or buying a car?

I am guessing that reason why these Singaporeans get stuck on the chicken rice fallacy is because they simply cannot afford a car or a house in Singapore - they've never been able to dream about getting on the property ladder and are still living with their parents even as working adults. This is why they are focussing on something that they do know very well - chicken rice - and their entire argument centres around, yes you've guessed it: chicken rice.

Does your world revolve around chicken rice?

I was recently in Scotland where I spent the Christmas holidays - now here's an interesting fact for you. Scotland's population is almost the same as in Singapore: Scotland has 5.25 million whilst Singapore has 5.31 million. However, the area of Singapore is 710 km2 whilst the area of Scotland is 78,390 km2 - Singapore is very densely populated and Scotland is relatively empty, especially once you get out into the countryside. Property prices for houses in Scotland can be ridiculously cheap - you can get a cottage from £40,000 with a nice piece of land around it. For £100,000, it can be a nice bungalow with a garden. For £500,000, you can get a mansion with a sea/loch/lake view along with a huge garden (and no neighbours!). How much do you get for your money on the HDB market eh?

People like myself still choose to live in the big city - I am living in a small flat in central London because it is convenient for my work; there is a trade off between being close to where work is and moving out to the countryside in somewhere like rural Scotland where you can get a huge house for very little money. However for Singaporeans, you don't have that choice - not unless you're willing to move to somewhere like Ayer Hitam in Johor state, across the border in Malaysia. In England, it isn't uncommon for a family to settle down somewhere like Northampton where housing is relatively cheap and still only an hour's journey into London. So daddy would wake up early in the morning and go to work in London whilst the children would go to school locally in Northampton and the family can get onto the housing ladder quite easily in a place like that. Singaporeans simply don't have that option.

It is much harder for Singaporeans to get on the property ladder. 

Let's talk about cars - I have three letters for you: COE. The Certificate of Entitlement, oh yes. For those of you who insist on owning a car in Singapore, that's the price you pay. It has reached a high of S$67,000 in 2012, Whilst it is a luxury to have your own transport (not to mention a status symbol), why anyone would buy a car in Singapore is beyond me when you always have the option of renting for those occasions when you really need a car or simply taking a taxi. Now I actually am with the PAP  - it is a necessary evil because Singapore is already a very congested country and you simply have to limit the number of cars on the roads or else you will end up with epic traffic jams.

But if you do insist on having a car, go ahead but just be prepared to pay for it. As in the jackfruit and blackberries analogy, some things are cheaper in Singapore, some things are a lot more expensive in Singapore. You can't just celebrate the fact that you have cheap chicken rice whilst ignoring the spiralling costs of car ownership in Singapore. You have to take the good with the bad.

Chicken rice = good, national service = very bad

I have also done a London vs Singapore piece last year regarding the comparative costs of healthcare.  In any case, why do I get the feeling that Singaporeans are so fucking determined to hold on to every cent/penny they own? Even if you do pay less taxes and you don't mind serving 2 to 2.5 years of national service, hey, guess what? There are still some serious problems in Singapore which money cannot solve - this is evident from the fact that the moment Li Jiawei (the Singaporean star table tennis player) retired, she announces that she will be moving back to China with her family. A lot of Singaporeans reacted very negatively to her decision to leave Singapore - but can you blame her? She has a son - would any mother choose to make her son do national service in Singapore? The fact that she could have had a well paid job coaching in Singapore after her retirement didn't matter - there were other things in life that mattered more to her and no amount of money could make her want to stay in Singapore.

I was at the Museum of London Docklands recently and there was a Victorian Christmas display featuring Ebeneezer Scrooge. Scrooge was a famous hoarder of money - despite having significant personal wealth, he took more pleasure in hoarding money than perhaps spending some of that money on other around him. He epitomizes that kind of person who is miserable despite being rich - because he is obsessed with holding on to every penny that he has . His attitude reminds me of a lot of Singaporeans I have encountered who love the fact that Singapore's low-tax regime has allowed them to hold on to more of their take-home pay, CPF notwithstanding. Does that really make you happy?

Do you feel the need to hoard every penny you have? 

I have been called a socialist, even a fucking communist (over the Rohingya refugees issue). I actually don't mind paying higher taxes in the UK because a lot of these taxes are used to help those who are poor and are on low-income. I do believe that a government should tax the rich to help the poor and I am not one of those who benefit the most from this system. But guess what? I am glad I am not, because those people have a lot less than what I have to begin with. Okay, so I don't get to claim disability benefits - but guess what? I am glad I am not disabled so I am happy to be contributing towards the system which does help disabled people who live in my community.

Here's the irony, amongst my British friends, I'm considered centre-right. But in the eyes of my Singaporean friends, I am so far to the left I am considered a loony left wing communist. I suppose my somewhat relaxed attitude towards money, taxes and charity is due to the fact that I have always had the knack of making money. I have changed jobs, changed industries, moved countries, moved continents, learned new languages to cope with new challenges and guess what? It's like I have the cat's righting reflex, I have somehow always landed on my feet no matter what crazy circumstances I have thrown myself into over the years. I guess that's why I don't feel this desperate need to hold on to every penny I have because I know I can always make more money if I have to. I suppose people who don't share that same kind of confidence about making money might feel more compelled to hoard money tightly, like Scrooge.

So there you go, a lot of my attitude has been shaped by my experiences around the world and that is why I can only laugh when I see Singaporeans continue to fall for the chicken rice fallacy in this day and age. The chicken rice epitomizes something that is very familiar to Singaporeans - but are Singaporeans valuing this sentimentality too much? I fear it has - that is why so many Singaporeans use the chicken rice fallacy to justify so many things that are so very wrong with Singapore. This is why I can't believe that Singaporeans use the chicken rice fallacy to justify their happiness: does your well-being and happiness really boil down to chicken rice being widely available at S$2.50?  As much as I adore chicken rice, I see Singaporeans setting this criteria up merely to assure themselves that Singapore is the best country in the world - simply because they can walk down to their local hawker centre and get chicken rice (or laksa, char kway teow, mee rebus,  wantan noodles and other local Singaporean hawker favourites) at S$2.50.

Don't get me wrong, I am sentimental about the country where I grew up too - but I don't see any point in trying to use sentimentality to justify the problems; I am more interested in finding solutions to these problems instead. As usual, questions, comments etc - let me know what you think, leave a comment below, cheers.